Abstract

The distribution of the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic waters is evaluated using two presence-only analyses: The maximum entropy model (Maxent) and the ecological niche factor analysis (ENFA). Maxent predicts those geographical areas that satisfy the environmental or abiotic requirements of a species while ENFA explores the niche and habitat preferences of O. vulgaris. The analyses were implemented recovering the spatial information from 213 octopus presence data collected from surveys and bibliographical records. Together, these analyses provided reasonable estimates of the species distribution and the octopus habitat. Among the gathered set of explanatory environmental variables, sea bottom temperature, sea bottom salinity, surface dissolved oxygen and sea surface chlorophyll-α appear as the main variables involved in O. vulgaris distribution. These results were confronted with the available literature.

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